Sunday, July 29, 2012

A quick update

Much has happened in my little horse world in the past few months.

Earlier, I had made a post about a scare at the vet with Leah, my Arabian mare. Well, just a little over a month after that, she became horribly injured, tearing a large chunk of her face away. She spent 10 days at the vet where they first tried to stitch everything back together and then, due to infection and too much blood loss, ended up having to remove everything so that she would heal open. The entire thing was a horrifying ordeal and very hard to deal with. I'm so very thankful for my husband, who helped me through all of it and was the one who cleaned out her wound every day since I was having so much trouble even looking at it.

I'm happy to report that now, nearly 4 months later, she is almost completely healed. There is only a thin line down the side of her face to show that anything had ever happened. She also had some nerve damage, which causes her lower lip on that side to droop, but even that has been improving.

Yesterday, we went on a long trail ride with some friends. I rode Bo, and Jeff rode Leah. I'm still dealing with some confidence issues when riding her so Jeff decided he would ride her. He is what I would call a confident beginner. She needs a rider who is confident and I know that my recent fear only causes a downward spiral when she spooks at things. She and Jeff did very well on the ride. She became spooky a couple of times, but quickly got over it and kept on down the trail. Next time maybe I'll be brave and ride her out.